Certainly, it was a very forlorn
death-bed; and I felt--what I have heretofore been inclined to doubt--
that it might, be a comfort to have persons whom one loves, to go with us
to the threshold of the other world, and leave us only when we are fairly
across it. This poor fellow had a wife and two children on the other
side of the water.
At first he did not utter any sound; but by and by he moaned a little,
and gave tokens of being more sensible to outward concerns,--not quite so
misty and dreamy as hitherto. We had been talking all the while--myself
in a whisper, but the surgeon in his ordinary tones--about his state,
without his paying any attention. But now the surgeon put his mouth down
to the man's face and said, "Do you know that you are dying?" At this
the patient's head began to move upon the pillow; and I thought at first
that it was only the restlessness that he had shown all along; but soon
it appeared to be an expression of emphatic dissent, a negative shake of
the head. He shook it with all his might, and groaned and mumbled, so
that it was very evident how miserably reluctant he was to die. Soon
after this he absolutely spoke. "O, I want you to get me well! I want
to get away from here!" in a groaning and moaning utterance. The
surgeon's question had revived him, but to no purpose; for, being told
that the Consul had come to see him, and asked whether he had anything to
communicate, he said only, "O, I want him to get me well!" and the whole
life that was left in him seemed to be unwillingness to die.
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